ST PAUL, Minn. — Visitors to the Minnesota State Fair won't see the candidates for governor debating on the big stage in Dan Patch Park this year, but that doesn't mean they won't see them.
It's safe to say the road to the governor's office runs right through the fairgrounds.
DFL incumbent Gov. Tim Walz and his Republican challenger, Dr. Scott Jensen, are spending a lot of time at the Great Minnesota Get-Together. When they're not doing interviews with the media at the fair, they're pressing the flesh and getting unfiltered comments and questions about what's happening in the state.
Both Walz and Jensen told KARE they're picking up a positive vibe from the crowds at the fair.
"I'm energized. I think people come to the fair a little bit let down and they sort of engage in fellowship being with one another," Jensen remarked. "It almost feels like people are coming to the fair wanting to see Minnesota heal."
Walz said the fairgoers he's talked to are thankful that we're emerging from the worst parts of the COVID pandemic and the civil unrest that followed police killings of unarmed Black men.
"People I think are searching for normalcy. They're tired of the chaos and they're kind of just I think getting in the mood, back to school, back to talking about things," Walz said of his conversations with voters.
"They're talking about long-term solutions around crime, which they talk about how do we do that, how do we make sure we're hiring people for these unfilled jobs."
Walz is a career high school teacher who spent 24 years in the National Guard and served 12 years in Congress representing southern Minnesota before being elected governor in 2018. He said he believes Minnesotans are willing to stick with his vision as the state recovers from the lingering effects of the pandemic that claimed 13,000 lives in Minnesota and millions across the world.
Jensen is a Chaska physician who served one term in the Minnesota Senate. He points at Walz's response to the pandemic, especially the school lockdowns, as one reason why voters should replace him.
"When it was about, 'Let's flatten the curve, don’t overwhelm the health care facilities,' I think Minnesota was all in, but I think very quickly it became clear it wasn’t being guided by science," Jensen said.
"The second lockdown -- by then we already knew we were harming children profoundly, and yet we had another lockdown, and in that lockdown, we were told you could get a haircut, but the first one you couldn’t."
Jensen rose to prominence as a critic of the government's response to the pandemic, and reporting of data. He alleged doctors were being encouraged to overcount the number of COVID deaths. He later said the Minnesota Department of Health wasn't engaged in that practice, but it was happening in other states.
He promoted the concept of herd immunity -- building up natural immunity in the population through catching the virus -- as preferable to sheltering in place for healthier people who weren't likely to become very ill.
Walz bristles at Jensen's contention that many of the measures imposed by the government were hurting more people than the virus itself.
"While we were out giving tens of millions of vaccines, while we were delivering masks, while we were doing the research, pioneering many of this for the country, I've got an opponent that was spreading false information about COVID that put people at risk," Walz said.
The two are also divided over Jensen's proposal to spend taxpayer dollars on private school scholarships, including tuition for schools sponsored by religious groups. They're also on opposite sides of the abortion rights question, but for the time being, that right is protected in Minnesota through a state supreme court decision.
"This election is a choice. I think it's a choice between are you going to use data, science, and lean forward? Are you going to trust women to make their own health care decisions, are you going to believe in our electoral system, our democracy?" Walz said.
Jensen made it clear he'll continue to hammer away at Walz for delays in deploying the National Guard to Minneapolis to quell the riots that broke out in May of 2020 after Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
"I think it’s coming down about leadership. I think Tim Walz pays a lot of attention to his base, to his people. He doesn’t want to do something that’s not going to sit well with them. I think that’s why he froze before he put the National Guard on the streets."
Jensen said he treated Minneapolis police officers who worked in the 3rd Precinct and later sought his help confirming their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnosis for Workers Comp benefits and Disability Early Retirement benefits.